Last week we complained about an insufficient number of summer associate scandals so far this year. But maybe things are starting to pick up.

We begin by giving props to Proskauer Rose for their commitment to public service. They bring all their summers down to New Orleans to work on a Habitat for Humanity project. From the press release:

On Friday and Saturday, June 20 and 21, law firm Proskauer Rose LLP will work with Habitat for Humanity to build three houses in the Musicians Village' section of the 9th Ward of New Orleans. The firm aims to help families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, giving them a place to once again call home.

Proskauer Rose summer associates, lawyers and staff, including Howard Shapiro, head of the firm's New Orleans office, and local Habitat for Humanity representatives will be available for interviews and photographs during the house building. The houses will be located at 1817, 1821 and 1825 Bartholomew Street and work will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. both days. A check presentation ceremony will take place Friday, June 20 at 8 a.m. at 4000 North Roman Street.

Proskauer Rose is bringing together 90 summer associates, lawyers and staff from its New Orleans and national offices to participate in the event. The firm will also donate $75,000 to Habitat for the cost of one of the homes. This is the third consecutive year the firm has participated in and sponsored such an event.

So that's the background. Read the story, after the jump.

There are vague rumors of something afoot at Heller Ehrman. Could the persistent gossip about a merger finally come true? Last week brought this report from TheLawyer.com:

The chairman of US firm Heller Ehrman has refused to rule out a merger after respected litigator Paul Alexander became the seventeenth partner to leave the firm this year. The firm lost 25 partners in 2007 and has lost 17 this year after Alexander quit to join Howrey in Palo Alto. [Ed. note: See links collected at the end of this post for more coverage of partner departures.]

Heller chairman Matt Larrabee told The Lawyer that a merger was one of the options his firm was considering, but maintained that no decision had been taken at this point in time....

The rumour mill has put Heller in talks with a number of firms and Larrabee's refusal to deny that Heller is currently in merger talks will only add to the widely held belief that the firm is nearing a deal.

But it won't be the previously rumored merger with Winston & Strawn, which Heller sources tell us is history. Another possible suitor: Proskauer Rose, which emerged in speculation last month. One Heller tipster likes the idea, noting good geographical fit -- Heller's California and Asia presences nicely complement Proskauer's East Coast focus -- and practice group compatibility ("e.g., pro-policy holder insurance coverage, similar patent practices").

Heller chairman Larrabee told the Lawyer: "I can categorically deny that Heller has concluded we must merge." But internally the message is a bit different. Associates were told in a recent video conference that "the firm is definitely looking to merge, that it is an 'awkward' size for the market."

In the meantime, Heller Ehrman continues to go about its business, including major pro bono matters. For example, working together with the Public Interest Law Project and Bay Area Legal Aid, the firm just filed a lawsuit against Alameda County, challenging the planned termination of general assistance benefits to thousands of indigent individuals. More details here.

Heller chairman coy over merger rumours [The Lawyer]
The bigger the better [The Lawyer]
Culture Wars Take Their Toll on Heller Ehrman [American Lawyer]
Morning Wrap: Partner Defections [The BLT / Blog of the Legal Times]
Heller's Tempestuous San Diego Office Loses 4 [Legal Pad / Cal Law]

Yes, LEWW hears the howls of protest from our readers about the weeks we skipped recently. We'll do a makeup post soon, we promise. The weddings pages have been such a wasteland lately that it's been hard to pull together the kind of legal and nuptial excellence you've come to expect here. And it's crushing our spirit.

Take this week. The NYT featured just seven weddings total, with only two LEWW contenders and one Ivy degree (from U. Penn). Here are the two finalists:

1.) Robin Rosenthal and Richard Rothfeld

2.) Erin Conroy and Thomas Welling Jr.

More about these newlyweds, after the jump.

Here's an update to last week's post about how various law firms fared in recruiting summer associates for this year. That post, including the comments, featured oodles of info about the expected summer class sizes at different Biglaw shops.

Now we bring you a few more data points. First, just a few short hours after our post went up, this email went around the New York office of Latham & Watkins:

As we move forward into 2008, the Recruiting Committee and the Recruiting Department would like to thank each of you for your support and participation in last year’s recruiting efforts. Your involvement in the summer program and our fall recruiting efforts was “priceless”. Thanks to your efforts, our summer program and fall hiring results were incredibly successful. The recruiting efforts resulted in 61 first years (not including judicial clerks, which we are currently in the midst of recruiting) starting next fall and a summer class of 80 summer associates (our largest to date!). Thank you all again and a very happy and healthy 2008 to each of you.

It's nice when firms are so responsive to our inquiries.

In addition, a few tipsters emailed us unofficial information about how their firms did in the recruiting process. Check it out, after the jump.

The latest Biglaw bonus announcement to cross our desk is that of Proskauer Rose. The firm is paying year-end and special bonuses, according to the familiar scale, consistent with the firm's "established merit and hours guidelines." The non-New Yorkers among you will be pleased to see that the Proskauer bonuses are the same across the New York, Boston, and Los Angeles offices.

Also, congratulations to Proskauer's eleven new partners (and four senior counsel), whose promotions were recently announced. A special shout-out to Jon Oram, our law school classmate, and a leading young sports lawyer. Jon's clients include the NBA, the NHL, Major League Soccer, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the New Jersey Devils. Congrats, Jon!

P.S. For the record, Jon was not our source for the Proskauer bonus memo -- which we've posted for your reading pleasure, after the jump.

Here are this morning's firms (in Vault 100 order, prestige scores in parentheses):

36. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (6.308)
37. Linklaters (6.301)
38. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (6.244)
39. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (6.204)
40. Proskauer Rose LLP (6.195)

You'll note that one of these firms is Linklaters, which we recently wrote about. We reprint two emails from Linklaters sources, taking issue with our prior coverage, after the jump.

The Vault Top 100 Law Firms [Vault]

Earlier: Vault 1-5; Vault 6-10; Vault 11-15; Vault 16-20; Vault 21-25; Vault 26-30; Vault 31-35

Okay, she looks like a cross between Chelsea Clinton and your fourth-grade English teacher. But make no mistake about it: Judge Marian Shelton is a true judicial diva, and not to be messed with.

From the New York Daily News:

Bronx Family Court Judge Marian Shelton allegedly yelled at a lawyer to "shut up," tossed a woman from court for wearing "inappropriate" clothing, told a Caribbean man to "take those stupid things out of your hair" and said a lawyer had "mental health issues."...

"Go to therapy, but don't act out in my courtroom," Shelton allegedly snapped at one law guardian in a 2005 case.

In another instance, she allegedly mocked the accent of lawyer Mariana Toledo-Hermina.

"How is Toledo-Hermina an attorney when you cannot understand what she is saying?" Shelton allegedly said.

But Judge Shelton has her defenders. Like her husband:

In May, anticipating the [disciplinary] charges, Shelton's husband, wealthy former Proskauer Rose lawyer Saul Cohen, took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to bash the commission.

Full-page NYT ads aren't cheap. But then again, neither is chivalry.

Bronx judge scorn to be wild? [New York Daily News via Gothamist]

As several commenters mentioned, Proskauer Rose has raised associate salaries. Here's the announcement memo (originally posted by an anonymous commenter, but subsequently confirmed for us by multiple Proskauer sources).

To: New York, Los Angeles and Boston Associates
CC: Partners, Senior Counsel

From: The Executive Committee

Date: January 25, 2007

Re: 2007 Salaries

We are pleased to announce that we have increased compensation effective January 1, 2007, as follows:
Class Year Adjusted Base Salary

2006 $160,000
2005 $170,000
2004 $185,000
2003 $210,000
2002 $230,000
2001 $250,000
2000 $265,000
1999 $280,000
1998 and earlier $290,000

This increase is retroactive to January 1, 2007, and will be reflected in the February 15, 2007 payroll. Bonuses for 2007 will be determined at year-end, as usual.

Base salaries and compensation for Senior Counsel will continue to be determined on an individual basis.

We continue to highly value your contributions to the Firm and thank you for your dedication and hard work. We look forward to another successful year.

Law firm bonus season is over, at least in terms of announcements (even though some firms won't dole out the cash until next year). We'd like to use this quiet week to do some final follow-up and housekeeping on the bonus front.

Please email us, at tips AT abovethelaw DOT com, with any of the following:

(1) any significant New York bonus announcements that we missed;

(2) any bonus announcement memo that we're missing -- e.g., the Proskauer memo (if there was one) -- because we like to archive these for posterity; and

(3) any non-New York bonus news you'd like to pass along (since we realize we've been neglecting legal markets outside NYC).

You can see what we have and haven't covered by clicking here, and scrolling down through our past bonus coverage. Or you can search the entire site for the name of the firm in question.

Also, if you haven't done so already, please take our Biglaw bonus poll. We'll keep the voting open until at least January 2.

Re: Low Bonus? No Bonus? Anyone hear of this? [Infirmation / Greedy NY]

New Partners:

* Proskauer Rose: Fourteen new partners, three new senior counsel. Names here.

* Baker Botts: Eighteen (!) new partners. Names here.

* Wilson Sonsini: Thriteen new partners. Names here.

(Only two members of the class of 1998. How long is the WSGR partner track as a practical matter?)

At Risk:

* Some are speculating that William Haynes II, general counsel to the Department of Defense, will be replaced after CIA Director Robert Gates gets confirmed as Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's successor (as expected).

But with his Fourth Circuit nomination in limbo, where would Haynes go? The Legal Times suggests that he'll end up with "a high-powered legal job at one of the nation's top defense contractors," which sounds likely to us.

Deceased:

* Anthony Lapham, counsel at Goodwin Procter and former general counsel to the CIA, at the age of 70, of a heart attack.

Proskauer Rose Promotes 17 Attorneys [Proskauer Rose LLP]
Baker Botts Announces New Partners for 2007 [Baker Botts LLP]
Firm Names 10 New NY Partners [NYLawyer.com]
Firm Raises 13 to Partnership [NYLawyer.com]
Will the Pentagon's Top Lawyer Follow Rumsfeld Out the Door? [NYLawyer.com]
Law Blog Obituary: Goodwin Procter’s Anthony Lapham [WSJ Law Blog]
Anthony A. Lapham, 70, Former C.I.A. Lawyer, Dies [New York Times]

"Small is beautiful." That seems to be the trend with cell phones, digital cameras -- and, of course, law firm names:

DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary has officially shortened its name to DLA Piper.

One of the world's largest law firms with 3,100 lawyers, DLA Piper is the culmination of a series of mergers, beginning with the 1999 combination between Baltimore's Piper & Marbury and Chicago's Rudnick & Wolfe. At the beginning of last year, the firm then known as Piper Rudnick officially merged with both Palo Alto, Calif.-based Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and British legal giant DLA, which had 1,800 lawyers.

The firm said it had always planned to shorten the name after a transitional period.

Here's our question: Why stop there? Why not just call the firm "DLA," "DL," or just plain "D"? Law firms have become huge businesses; they might as well sound like them -- like GM, GE, IBM, etc.

This is only the latest example of a law firm streamlining its moniker by chopping off unnecessary or unwieldy partner surnames. Some years ago, the venerable "Dechert, Price & Rhoads" turned into "Dechert" -- a sign that it had arrived, like "Madonna" or "Cher." And "Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn" became "Proskauer Rose." (What prompted that change? Was it to avoid any negative associations with subway shooter Bernhard Goetz?)

Sometimes firms change their names not to make them shorter, but just to avoid being the butt of jokes by opposing counsel. Take one of New Jersey's largest law firms, Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger, & Vecchione. It used to be "Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger, & Vecchione." But when former Third Circuit Chief Judge John J. Gibbons (re)joined the firm, they quickly dumped "Crummy" and replaced it with "Gibbons."

W can hardly blame for that. But we still feel bad for poor Andrew Crummy.

Two Across, Eight Letters: Firm Its Shortens Name [New York Law Journal]

In light of the recent debut of Skaddenfreude, ATL's column chronicling attorney compensation, it's a neat coincidence that the New York Times has an entire article discussing compensation for first-year associates at major law firms.

We'll get to that article in just a second. First, though, a brief amendment to our prior Skaddenfreude request. We received this thoughtful email from a reader:

is it too late to add a line for hours billed? that would add more of an element of schadenfreude too, don't you think? this is more like freudenskadden -- feeling sick about how much more money they make.

Good point. We stand corrected! So yes, in your Skaddenfreude submissions -- we've received a bunch already, thanks, keep 'em coming -- please include your annual billable hours (either an estimate of this year's or last year's actual).

If you're not a law firm attorney, feel free to include an estimate of how many hours you work in a year. If you're a legal academic, throw in some bragging about how you make six-figures, or close to it, for only nine months of work.

Okay, that's the Skaddenfreude amendment. Now, on to discussion of the Times piece -- after the jump.